Firearm safety is a paramount concern among firearm owners and gun enthusiasts. As a result of this concern, there is a plethora of gun safes on the market, many equipped with high technology locking devices, which range from numerical codes to biometric recognition. Firearm owners largely fall into one of two categories with a substantial overlap between the two categories. In the first category, firearm owners are interested in the firearm from a functional/aesthetic perspective. In the second category, the firearm owners are interested in the firearm as a protection tool for protecting their domiciles. Firearm safes on the market today are designed to lock away firearms from theft and accidental discharge. For example, a safe can easily weigh several hundred pounds, making the safe immovable for a thief. At the same time, safes with electronic code entry panels or mechanical safe combinations make the contents of the safe essentially unreachable for a common thief.
However, a firearm owner who obtained the firearm for the purpose of protecting his/her domicile would need to reach the firearm quickly and safely. For example, in the middle of a night, upon hearing an intruder approaching a bedroom, the owner may not have time to get out of bed, approach the safe which may be in another room, key in the combination in the dark, open the safe, retrieve the firearm and point it in the direction of the intruder. However, placing the firearm in a drawer near the bed would not provide the safety that would be required by the owner against accidental or unauthorized use of the firearm, e.g., by a minor or thief.
Therefore, what is needed is a mechanism that allows a firearm owner quick and safe access to his/her firearm, while the firearm is otherwise locked away from unauthorized use. The access mechanism should be operable by a keyed device, such as an RFID which may be placed into a ring, bracelet, key fob, credit card or the like, and may even be implanted into the body of the person who is allowed access to the firearm. Thus, the present invention provides a handgun mini-vault which overcomes the disadvantages of prior art handgun safe systems.